08 November 2009

Dear Teen Facebook Users

Your friend's MOM has access to your friend's account. Occasionally she logs on AS your friend, because that's the deal in your friend's house. Your friend's MOM checks on what is on the computer and what your friend is up to. That means unbeknownst to you, she is looking at your profile pictures. She reads your statuses. She finds out what YOU are up to on a Saturday night, because she wants to know all about who her kids are hanging out with and "friending."

She learns so much about teen life she never would have known just from asking your friend. Because usually? Your friend comes home and how was school? Fine. Did you have a good day? Yes. What did you do? Stuff... like... usual stuff.

Just so you know? Y'all are so tame compared to me as a teen. And that's a good thing. If I found a "past me" type getting friended, my kid would totally lose facebook for a month. That, or I would tell my kid something like, "You need to go tell lil Miss C that her attitude toward her mommy was ungodly, turn or burn, and repent right now. There's the comment box. Start typing."

But seriously. I appreciate that God has changed your 14-year-old life, that you like the JONAS BROTHERS AND JESUS VERY MUCH (whoever they are... well, ok, I sorta know who JESUS is...) and that you've achieved a level three in some aquarium world.

PS. Nice picture in that little aquarium! I'm glad you love playing with the aquarium and the FarmTown stuff. I'm a YoVille fan myself.

PPS. I also see that you and my son must have attended the same clses b/c u dont know hw 2 use eng. so gd. Sigh.

21 comments:

OMG. I'm that friend's MOM. The reason I joined my space was so I could keep track of my teenagers, but it became about keeping track of their friends too, on occasion. At times I've found myself praying for my sons' friends (a couple of them have big problems), other times I'm grateful for them, and other times confronting my kid over comments like how he enjoyed driving a friend's car (when he wasn't licensed). And, yes, I've had to ask what certain words mean. Sigh . . .

Oh, boy! I've been wanting to rant about this for a while, but I can't do it on my own blog in case other family members read it.

I am already regretting "friending" one of my nieces, and she's almost 24! I often wonder if she forgets that she befriended dear old Aunt Sue, and that I can see all of her smutty looking pictures and photos of her and her friends in a drunken state. Oh, and then there are the, "parents out of town, party at my house" messages (yes, she lives with her parents). Eeeek!

I really don't want to see some of that stuff, and I definitely don't want my kids catching sight of it over my shoulder when I am trying to catch up with my old fuddy-duddy friends on FB.

Is it just me, or are early 20's "kids" acting more like high school aged kids these days? Or, is it just my niece and her friends? Sigh.

See, that's kinda why I don't friend the kids of MY friends so much? I don't want to put myself in that position... and yet... it seems unfriendly NOT to? So sometimes I do...

I wish there were different "levels" of friending on fb. Like "inner circle" friends and everyone else. This way if, say, you were a teacher or other professional, you could talk about your drunken husband and divorce or whatever without upsetting the kids. I'm a fuddy-duddy too, but I think sometimes you want to throw a sentence out there, but not have it be for EVERYONE.

We are friends with some of our old youth group kids and that is sometimes weird. But the best one was my 23 year old niece. She had all of these photos up of her drinking with her friends, drinking/tail gating with her parents, and her minor brothers drinking at these tail gating events (with my sister and her husband there). Shortly after I pointed this out to my mother and other sister, my nieces FB mysteriously disappeared. When it came back all of the pictures were gone--too funny. My other nieces, brother's girls, friended us and then just quietly unfriended us. I have never asked them again--I don't want to know.

Nope, you probably don't. Incidentally, I've seen some "followers" drop off after a post or two I knew rubbed 'em the wrong way... whatever. Usually I don't do that unless someone is flagrantly mean on more than one occasion and I've spoken to them about why I have a problem.

My daughter's friends all friend me, as well! If they say something inappropriate, I usually comment. A few times I've gotten a "Sorry, Claire" in the response. :)

I think it's actually helped me get to know dd's friends better, since they aren't as self-conscious on Facebook as they are in real life.

As far as an "inner circle," I have actually "hidden" a few people, and hidden lots of the Farmville and other games. The hidden people don't know their hidden, so no one gets offended, and you can always go to their page if you want to catch up. :)

It took me MUCH too long to figure out how to turn off some of my so-called "friends" daily posts (well, in some cases it would be nearly hourly posts:). Some were downright depressing, most TMI... you know? And will I offend the church people (which is an amazing amount at our church) if I say yes to one, and no to another? Thankfully, the few teens I've said yes to have been relatively calm. Just pics of their latest haircolor (pink) and some line of a song running through their mind. Sounds like calm stuff compared to others mentioned here.

Yeah, I have some odd family who just loooves to fight and pick on me at every opportunity so I have to be careful. On the other hand, I just don't have my sisters on facebook and that solves the whole problem. Ha.

I joined facebook so that I could watch Marissa too. I won't talk about her "friends." I have needed to ask her to censor some of her own posts and photos. Uh, my mom is a friend on your facebook -- take out the questionable words. No, substituting a star for the /u/ in a that word still makes it a cuss word.

I have a cousin whose photos I don't look at...

Oh, and I play YoVille and Happy Aquarium. Beverly runs a farm on Farmville. I played FarmTown before YoVille, but at the time there were only 40 levels. I was at 40.

Welcome!

I'm Christine! I live near Kansas City, Missouri, and I like Polish pottery a little bit. This blog is mostly about our homeschooling adventures, family life and my assorted oddball opinions. I'd love it if you left a comment and said hello!